Reunion on Ganymede

Maybe they'd laugh at him for saying it. Maybe they'd think he was just a damn old fool.

He moved closer to the mike and the uproar quieted, waiting.

'Comrades — ' Gramp began and then he stopped.

That was the word. They were comrades now. Marshies and Earthies. They'd fought in bitter hatred, each for what he thought was right. Maybe they had to fight. Maybe that war was something that was needed. But it was forty years ago and all its violence was a whisper in the wind — a dim, old memory blowing from a battlefield where hatred and violence had burned itself out in one lurid blast of strength. But they were waiting. And they hadn't laughed.